We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Hess recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jessica, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Photography is an oversaturated market in a world where everyone, even non-professionals, carry a camera with them 24/7. Making money from photography is no easy feat, but it is made even harder by choosing a niche that is often considered less valuable in the photography industry. For those that find success in their photography career, 99% of them are photographing commercially; newborns, family sessions, seniors, etc. When people think of a professional photographer, they think of someone they hire to photograph memories and their family milestones, which is the largest portion of professional photographers that exist. I, however, didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to photograph your smiling aunt in the sunset with her nice autumn sweater. I didn’t want to photograph newborns, or happy families playing in the leaves. It all bored me, I wanted to create art, and I wanted to express myself through my work. I wanted to put my design and costuming skills to play and create all-new, oftentimes otherworldly ideas. I wanted to be in charge of the final piece from start to finish, a making of my own mind. So how do I make money from that? Why would anyone want to pay me to create something of my own, rather than what they wanted me to create? Why would anyone commission an artist and tell them, “do whatever you want.” I was worried it would be impossible, but it absolutely wasn’t.
It wasn’t easy, and it took a LOT of hard work and dedication to my craft. People didn’t just line up and hand me their money and tell me to “go nuts”, they had to trust that what I was going to produce was going to be something they wanted to be a part of. I had to sell them a product that they haven’t even seen yet, one that didn’t even exist yet, and I managed to do just that. Like any photographer, I had to start by making a portfolio that stood out and showed my skills to potential clients. I had to create brand loyalty and find people interested in my craft. Then I had to work on my portfolio consistently for years upon years, always improving and always advancing my ideas. I created characters and make-believe worlds in which these subjects seem to come from, I designed new things that hadn’t been seen before in the market. Eventually, people wanted me to turn them into one of my characters. They had to look at my work and trust that I had the capability to help them express the feelings or ideas they wanted to portray in the photographic form. It was more than taking photos of them as they are, which anyone can do, and more portraying them for who they feel like on the inside, or who they wanted to pretend to be for a day.
Taking this route meant I had to work for scraps for a long time in order to improve my storytelling capabilities and my technical skills to get to a level where strangers trusted me to call all the shots and still produce something they were proud of, and after many years I finally got to that level. A majority of my clients these days tell me nothing more than their favorite colors and a theme they might want to portray, and they trust me to build a design around those ideas and help them see their visions come to life. What’s more, they are willing to pay me to help MY visions come to life, solely because they want to be a part of the world I create. They want to be one of my characters. It was a risky career move, and I couldn’t be more thankful that I chose the route I did. Now I am paid to create what I want to create, and I have the freedom to be as creative and as weird as I’d like to be, while still paying the bills.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Jess Hess, otherwise known as Wurmwood Photography. I am a 31-year-old Dayton, Ohio local with a love and passion for photography. I live and work in a 200-year-old church surrounded on all sides by graveyards, which helps make my sessions unique from start to finish. I am an eclectic person, who is very much into all things strange and unusual. I’ve been an outcast most of my life, and wanted to use my weirdness as an advantage. I specialize in conceptual portrait work, which is a bit different than your traditional portraiture. Rather than photographing people as they are, I create a character for them to portray. My work tells stories and creates a fantasy realm in which people can express themselves through emotion or theme. This allows us to get as creative or as weird as we want to get, and lets me express my own self through my art.
My passion for photography started at a very young age. I used to roam the streets with my polaroid as a child, always looking for something interesting to photograph, until eventually, I moved onto human subjects as a teen. My friends and I would always play dress up and I would make makeshift sets to photograph them in, it was fun. I’ve always been very artistic, and excel in a lot of different artistic fields. I draw, paint, sculpt, design, code, render, and so much more. I got into making accessories and wardrobe and started utilizing them in my photography, and it all really just clicked. I’ve spent my entire life obsessed with the arts and with photography, always working to one-up myself and improve in every way I could. For years I would spend every day with photography tutorials on in the background, taking in as much knowledge as I possibly could. I tried new things constantly, even things that I was told wouldn’t or shouldn’t work, and found success in tinkering and taking chances. I started by making my own lights and modifiers, and experimenting using literal garbage to create what it was I wanted to create. I built my kit and my studio up one piece at a time over a decade of hard work.
As is stands now, I have won two silver medals in the PPA International Photography Competition, one bronze award, numerous Fstoppers features and photos of the day, and have had multiple articles and images featured in international publications. I’ve been a people’s choice award finalist for Life Framer, and was a finalist in the Beautiful BIzzarre art prize. I have been flown out to DC by Meta for my dedication as a business owner using Facebook to thrive, and I came in second place in a reality competition show for photography sponsored by Shutter Magazine, Canon, and Wescott. (The Creator Series – Find it on Youtube!) I’ve had my images on the covers of comic books, flyers, and the front page of big-time photography websites. I’ve now started teaching workshops to help other photographers shoot how they want to shoot. I’ve bagged a lot of cool titles, and I am always looking to add more to my list.
I am incredibly proud of how far I have come in such a niche field, especially when growing up I was always told I would have to shoot the straight and narrow if I ever wanted to make a name for myself (or a paycheck) in this field. I was consistently told that there was no market for what I wanted to do, and told I would never make it as an artist if I wasn’t willing to photograph the ordinary things that people wanted to pay for. I am especially proud of myself for being stubborn enough to not listen and resilient enough to stick it out long enough to see my dreams become a reality. Who knew that a teenager could be right about something? Turns out, I was. Dreams, no matter how weird, can absolutely come to fruition. The only tip I’ve ever had to give is this; stay the course. Stick it out, and keep going. If you never quit, you absolutely will see your skills flourish until your pipe dreams become your day-to-day reality; you just have to keep going.
If there’s anything I want people to know, it’s that I am obsessed with this craft, and art in general. I create because I have an overwhelming NEED to do so. I don’t create just for fun, or for money, I create because it is who I am and it is all I have ever wanted to do. I do it because not doing it would go against everything I am and everything I ever was. I was born to create, and that is exactly what I will do. I just want to go bigger, get better, and keep getting weirder as I go.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
Being sincere, and keeping a promise to yourself to always do right. People talk, and word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have. This can go either way, good or bad. If you have goals, you have to smash them. If you make announcements, you have to follow through. Inspiration is nothing compared to discipline, and you absolutely need discipline to thrive and survive in any business. You have to set an example, even if only for yourself. Do what you say you will do, be willing to admit fault and mistakes, and be dedicated enough to wake up every day with the willingness and desire to learn something new. Be yourself, be unique, and be honest. Your clients will see you for who you are, and being the best you that you can be is the most valuable way to gain and retain clients. Strive to always to better than the day before, push yourself to your limits and then raise your limits and keep on pushing. Your hard work and dedication will absolutely shine through your work, and it will let people know that they can trust you and the product you are selling.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
The absolute most rewarding part of what I do is just living a happy life. I have fostered a life in which I get to create and do my own thing while still surviving in an ever-changing world. I was able to take charge of my life and my profession in a way that I wish everyone could. It is the freedom of choosing my own hours; never having someone else dictate when I have to go to sleep or wake up, and never having to answer to someone else to help make their quotas and deadlines. I work for myself. When I succeed, it is for me, not for someone else. When I fail, it is on me, and that motivates me to work harder and never fail, although failures have to (and do) happen. Owning my own business means I am in control of my own life in ways that are hard to describe, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. It means I have to rely on myself, and nothing is more rewarding than setting your own goals and then smashing through them.
Contact Info:
- Website: WurmwoodPhotography.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/WurmwoodPhotography
- Facebook: Facebook.com/WurmwoodPhotos